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This is very interesting...I haven't been able to watch it with sound yet but I am hoping there is some explanation for the twitch at the end of the stroke, and also why the neutral, seigan posture is tilted off to the side a bit.

I was taught the same thing-- to allow incoming things (swords) to be deflected off to the side away from you. In other words some measure of passive protection is built into the posture, while any active defense would be on top of that. (Like a boxer's hands being up-- but since the sword is thin, it would only guard one sliver of your body if not tilted)

I was taught the same thing-- to allow incoming things (swords) to be deflected off to the side away from you. In other words some measure of passive protection is built into the posture, while any active defense would be on top of that. (Like a boxer's hands being up-- but since the sword is thin, it would only guard one sliver of your body if not tilted)

In the Iwama system the "tilt" is a manifestation of the hanmi stance with all it entails. In the start of the second video, for example, it is there on the finishing cut preventing the ai-uchi (mutual kill) situation.

In the Iwama system the "tilt" is a manifestation of the hanmi stance with all it entails. In the start of the second video, for example, it is there on the finishing cut preventing the ai-uchi (mutual kill) situation.

This makes sense. I noted the part in one of the Lewis videos where he talks about hanmi vs keeping both hips forward.

In Yagyu Shinkage ryu we call it holding your sword "naturally" or jun. And if you've got your hips turned a bit, it is in fact natural to have your sword turned a bit.

Training to use the bokken as a bokken is actually really fascinating, in that a couple of hundred years of swordsmen engaging in rather serious duels with bokken to demonstrate their skills or the virtues of the system they trained, nobody ever systematized "bokutojutsu."

(Well, somewhere online is an essay written by Karl Friday speculating that such a thing must have been a thing, but there isn't any evidence of it).

Training to use the bokken as a bokken is actually really fascinating, in that a couple of hundred years of swordsmen engaging in rather serious duels with bokken to demonstrate their skills or the virtues of the system they trained, nobody ever systematized "bokutojutsu."

The other side of this coin is the body skills one acquires. In the spirit of "you reap what you sow", the mechanics you develop from practising striking are different from those you get practising cutting. This in turn makes for different taijitsu.

The uketachi keeps line, the uchitachi "weaves" around into the openings allowed by uketachi..
Bokken - not shinken.

I watched the vid again (pair training) and aite crosses the line big time. I wonder what their shikko looks like. All this talk about hip placement...they step decimeters 'over the line'. Why not more tight/narrow, more centered?
This is still irimi, not tenkan or am I mistaken?

and why allow striking with bokken when with shinken this is considered bad? the one is training material for the other. it is like saying: "we do this in practise, but in a fight we do that." No, you will not.

I am confused as what they are trying to accomplish....

In a real fight:
* If you make a bad decision, you die.
* If you don't decide anything, you die.
Aikido teaches you how to decide.www.aikido-makato.nl

I watched the vid again (pair training) and aite crosses the line big time. I wonder what their shikko looks like. All this talk about hip placement...they step decimeters 'over the line'. Why not more tight/narrow, more centered?
This is still irimi, not tenkan or am I mistaken?

The video starts with 5th awase (uchitachi initiates a right yokomenuchi - uketachi blends with a finishing shomenuchi). To attack, uchitachi can't remain on the line as he will get a piece of wood in his face, consequently he goes off the line to the right.
To recive, the uketachi stays on the line while turning into the strike and blends.

Quote:

and why allow striking with bokken when with shinken this is considered bad? the one is training material for the other. it is like saying: "we do this in practise, but in a fight we do that." No, you will not.

I don't know much about shinken so I defer to you when you say that something is 'bad'. In this context however it is not the intent for one to be a training material for the other.

So it is not in fact irimi, but a 'tight' form of tenkan. We practise a form where tori 'takes' the center and deflects the bokken of aite. Tori in this case does not (should not) move away from the center line.

The training material was meant for bokken being practise instrument of the shinken and basically there is no difference in handling them.
Bokken is simply safer in practise, especially when 'searching'/'exploring'.

In a real fight:
* If you make a bad decision, you die.
* If you don't decide anything, you die.
Aikido teaches you how to decide.www.aikido-makato.nl

No problem - it's tricky especially if you come from a different perspective.

Quote:

So it is not in fact irimi, but a 'tight' form of tenkan. We practise a form where tori 'takes' the center and deflects the bokken of aite. Tori in this case does not (should not) move away from the center line.

The training material was meant for bokken being practise instrument of the shinken and basically there is no difference in handling them.
Bokken is simply safer in practise, especially when 'searching'/'exploring'.

Not sure if this is a statement about your own practice. My take here is that bokken is not a safe substitute for shinken but rather a weapon and a tool for self development in itself.

something like that, but not exactly. Lewis starts movement without connection,but probably does so for explaining things...
We would create small opening so aite would attack (i.e. move bokken slightly to the side). Then we would enter (on the line) and make similar movement as shown in vid. We train this go tai, ju tai and ryu tai. The first two emphasize kimusubi (control ma-ai and move backwards) and the latter is irimi (and move forward and deflect in one single action).

So many exercise exist that it is sometimes hard to 'see' what the exercise is for (especially when coming from different perspective)

Thanx for your explanation

In a real fight:
* If you make a bad decision, you die.
* If you don't decide anything, you die.
Aikido teaches you how to decide.www.aikido-makato.nl

Don't know about cutting - this is striking, with the body and a blunt weapon. Or, another way, a striking exercise to develop body skills, using a blunt weapon.

So, David, I wonder what you think of the following questions.

- In view of the general belief in the Iwama community that Saito Sensei came the closest to full transmission of O-Sensei's aikido, do you believe that O-Sensei viewed the bokken primarily as a striking weapon, rather than a cutting weapon?

- Is there any training exercise in the Iwama curriculum that is understood to be using the bokken as if it were a cutting instrument?

These questions are very interesting to me, as my own feeling is that the experience of aikido as uke is very different if tori has the intent to cut, rather than to strike.

Like Alex, I'd like to know when/where this "bokken is not an imitation shinken" business started, and what O-sensei would have to say about it.
To add to his great questions:

- Why in Iwama practice is the bokken held at the left hip just past the tsuka while you find you partner and walk to your practice spot, then raised in a symbolic sword draw motion to begin practice?
- Why do all bokken techniques/exercises involve hands being strictly on the tsuka at all times? (unlike the Iwama jo, a blunt weapon where you use many different hand positions and motions)
- Why do takeaway techniques never involve grasping the attacker's weapon except at the tsuka?
- Why is it shaped so specifically like a sword anyway, if it is supposed to be a blunt weapon rather than a sword replica?
- Why is it improper to hand bokken to others except by giving them the tsuka?
- Why do you start and end weapons sessions using specific locations (bokken on your left vs on right) for bowing in vs out?

I know none of these questions are damning on their own but in total it feels to me like bokken practice in general was designed/intended at its core to be imitation sword practice. Maybe the "but the bokken is a blunt weapon on its own, too" idea was added (or over-emphasized) later, in contradiction to the original intent of the practice?

Quote:

Alex Megann wrote:

These questions are very interesting to me, as my own feeling is that the experience of aikido as uke is very different if tori has the intent to cut, rather than to strike.

Although I have limited experience, I started in a club with heavy Iwama influence, and I've trained at several places also with Iwama flavor... the vernacular of "cut" in taijutsu has been almost universal. And of course the point was that doing "cut" action would have a uniquely desireable effect. So I guess even within Iwama tradition "cut" rather than strike is also similarly important?